Hugh Fortescue, 2nd Earl Fortescue
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The Right Honourable The Earl Fortescue KG PC |
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"Hugh, Earl Fortescue KG, Lord Lieutenant of Devon". Wearing Garter Star. Marble bust by Edward Bowring Stephens, 1861; Memorial Hall, West Buckland School, Devon
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| Lord Lieutenant of Ireland | |
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In office 13 March 1839 – 11 September 1841 |
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| Monarch | Victoria |
| Prime Minister | The Viscount Melbourne |
| Preceded by | The Marquess of Normanby |
| Succeeded by | The Earl de Grey |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 13 February 1783 |
| Died | 14 September 1861 (aged 78) |
| Nationality | British |
| Political party | Whig |
| Spouse(s) | (1) Lady Susan Ryder (1796–1827) (2) Elizabeth Geale (c. 1805–1896) |
| Alma mater | Brasenose College, Oxford |
Hugh Fortescue, 2nd Earl Fortescue KG, PC (13 February 1783 – 14 September 1861), styled Viscount Ebrington from 1789 to 1841, was a British Whig politician. He served as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from 1839 to 1841.
Fortescue was the eldest son of Hugh Fortescue, 1st Earl Fortescue, and Hester Grenville, daughter of Prime Minister George Grenville. He was educated at Eton and Brasenose College, Oxford.
Fortescue (as Ebrington) first became an MP for Barnstaple, just after his 21st birthday; and he sat for various constituencies almost continuously until 1839, when he was summoned to the House of Lords through a writ of acceleration in his father's junior title of Baron Fortescue.
Ebrington had entered Parliament in the 1800s as a Grenvillite connection, belonging to that section of the Whig party that supported the war with Napoleon; but in the following decade (in a generational shift) he broke away from them to join the Young Whigs. Fearing the corruptive effects of militarism on British society, the latter sympathised with the liberalising side of the French Revolution: Ebrington would later publish his conversations with Napoleon in his Elba exile.
After the war, in 1817, Ebrington confirmed his breach with the bulk of his Grenville relatives, and emerged as a prominent pro-Reform Whig - albeit one somewhat unusually rooted in a liberal, morally intense Anglicanism, which he combined with an interest in political economy. Ebrington strongly condemned the Six Acts as”the most alarming attack ever made by Parliament upon the liberties and constitution of the country”; and during the 1820s, he would repeatedly promote and vote for Parliamentary Reform.
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